The Underwater Space Program - Kostov - First Kerbal to go... under water

[kurgut]

Background: Before the history of space exploration, an error of a copyist working for dictionnary books editing happended at the word "space". He put by mystake instead the definition of the word "water". The error was unoticed, and then all the  Kerbals thought that "space"... was water.

Then, hundreds of years later, in the new Kalendar, the "Space" exploration began, at year 0. 

We sent a lot of sounding rockets, grinding a bunch of science and money, and fulfilling contracts. But then, Mission Control decided to send a Kerbal in Space.

So, the great engineer, Serguei Korolevitch Kerman designed a new rocket, the R-0, with 4 "huge" boosters attached to the core stage that can carry the brand new Kostov spacecraft.

The Kostov can support huge pressure, and also equipped with a basic system to manage his water ballast ( check great MOIST mod).

It can hold hardly one Kerbal. This Kerbal is Valentina Tereshkovitska (Jebediah and Yuri Gagarinov were to afraid to go).

Now let's launch, launch date: Year 61, april 12.

When the boosters are jetisoned, there's a nice effect that Korolevitch imagined, well, just to impress all Kerbals watching the launch.

We're doing a pretty fast gravity turn, we just wan't to reach almost the Karman line, to have the time to manage our landing.

Then the fairing are opened to let the great Mushni Booster separate the spacecraft from the rocket.

Fire!

Pretty brutal yes. Just overshooted the Karman line a bit, no matter.

Here's the Kostov!

Let's splash this. Chute armed, and airbags to stabilize the thing.

Jetisoned the aribags, and ready to dive, just open a bit the water intake to fill the ballast tank. The thing here is to manage our vertical velocity.

We've a gently descent at about 1.5 m/s.

-1000 meter! It's pretty dark here..

 

Just before landing, we exhaust a bit of ballast to touch as smooth as possible.

Landed!

As we're here, let's go EVA.

Airlock view.

Valentina has some ballast inside her "space" suit, I've to managed water intake/exhaust to increase or deacrease vertical velocity, well the same way as before.

Now, let's get out of here before the Kraken eat us.

We've jetisoned all our ballast by error, we're going at 22 m/s to the surface, that's way to fast, we have to quickly fill the tank to slow our "reentry profile" let's say :)

We come at the surface at 10 m/s, just a little jump over water, and now safe again!

And wev'e return just at our initial position, let's call the recovery team, the trismark should not be far from us..

 

First Milestones, great

[roboslacker]

Good stuff

[kurgut]

2 minutes ago, roboslacker said:

Good stuff

Thanks!

I'm Thinking to the next

Edited July 6, 2018 by kurgut

[RealKerbal3x]

This is cool  The description of why they are exploring the water rather than space is so Kerbal

[kurgut]

2 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

This is cool  The description of why they are exploring the water rather than space is so Kerbal

Haha, yep I laughed a lot when I found this Idea!

Edited July 6, 2018 by kurgut

[kurgut]

The Underwater Space Program 

  ~Interstage     Chapter~

Gemini / Inimeg Design

 

After our first succesful mission, Mission Kontrol decided to go ahead and send 2 kerbals in "space". But this time, they wanted to test maneuvrability and more horizontal velocity related things while in "space" (okay we speak about water right? ). So the mission would be to rendez-vous with an other spacecraft, (or at least debris) and to dock with it!

But our great engineer, Serguei Korolevitch Kerman is sick. He just ate too much snacks, now he wan't snacks all the time and can't concentrate to design a rocket propelly. So his assistant, Berner Von Vraun was called, and he designed a beautiful spacecraft, the Gemini. Full attitude control, docking system, 1.75 kerbal rated living space, just glorious!

To land, he imagined this system:

(This was actually a real Nasa plan, but never worked Just below )

Spoiler

But, "waow" said Bill, "how complicated this thing will be to build and fly, I refuse." Instead, he proposed the " Inimeg " spacecraft...

More simple, less expensive, more Kerbal.

He drew a little sketch to show to Berner:

"Okay, okay" he said. Let's build this and find a launch vehicle in the VAB's racks.

But, nothing there.

Berner concentrated a lot, his face became red, and "Yes!" He found. He found the solution by applying an old  precept: "Wan't to go higher, wan't to go faster? So just add more boosters"

The rocket is called "Juno", warranted 100% SRB. the only engine used is an "old sergeant rocket booster" in clusters of 11 for the first stage, 3 for the second, and one for the last.

Let's launch. (Bill added the "safe launch clamps system", looks cool)

Vertical ascent is fine.

View at +15s

View at +50s

And yes, we forgot to show the view at +30s...

Well, it didn't work obviously. We have to design an other launch vehicle, maybe something like a "Tito" or "Titan" rocket, we don't know yet.

Bob, who's always thinking, asked: "Why are we always launching things with rockets? Why not simply roll what we want to send from the runway, and then push it in "space" like a simple boat? "

Everyone answer: "we don't know, so just don't ask"

Next coming soon.

Until then, I'm... fly safe. (ah no sorry, that's an other one who says that)

Edited July 7, 2018 by kurgut

[obney kerman]

Interesting concept!